Thomas Pluck's Blog, page 6

The Femme Fatale Story Bundle

If you haven’t bought Bad Boy Boogie, or want to snag the e-book bundled with a great collection of crime novels by great writers like Lawrence Block, O’Neil Ledoux, and Libby Fischer Hellmann, check out the new Femme Fatale StoryBundle!

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There are two levels. For five bucks, you get Bad Boy Boogie and three other novels. You can also get a full ten e-books for $15, or more. StoryBundle gives you the option to donate 10% to a charity, as well. And you get to choose how much goes to the authors and how much goes to StoryBundle for setting it up. The power is yours.

Ramona is one of the most complex characters I’ve ever written, but she surely fits the femme fatale description. One of my inspirations was The Last Seduction, one of the first crime movies I watched where a woman had real agency and did things because she wanted to. While some fatales are sirens who lure men to their doom to make their living, she is a self-made woman who needs Jay Desmarteaux for her own purposes, and has a different set of rules… together they are explosive and dangerous, a legal mastermind and a cunning criminal cat’s paw. You’ll have to read Bad Boy Boogie to find out….

The Femme Fatale e-book StoryBundle

 

Montclair Authors Cocktail Reception and Don’t Quit the Day Job!

Thursday March 8th, I’ll be attending a Montclair Authors Meet & Greet cocktail reception sponsored by Sotheby’s and Watchung Booksellers. Come join us, it will be a good time.

From 7:00PM until 9:00PM, At 32 Valley Road Montclair, at Prominent Properties. Valerie Wilson Wesley is among those attending.

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Also, Victoria Watson asked me to write about writing with a full-time day job, as part of her series Don’t Quit the Day Job, and I obliged. You can read it here.

 

Short Story Challenge: Marching On

I picked up Denis Johnson’s The Largesse of the Sea Maiden, his posthumous collection of stories. I enjoyed the eponymous story very much, although the title has little to do with the story, so it will never be titular. (I like saying titular. But titular and eponymous are very different in meaning, which I now know, thanks to following copy-editors on Twitter). Johnson was one of our best, and I discovered him late. I avoided Jesus’s Son because I assumed it was religious, and read Tree of Smoke, which was interesting, but overlong. His short stories have always been satisfying, and this one is no exception. He says so much with so little. The character lives a soulless life, rich and entitled. The opening scene is unforgettable and I won’t ruin it. Read the book. To give you an idea of the man telling it, he gets a call from an ex-wife who has terminal cancer and is giving her final regards, and he can’t remember if it’s wife one or wife two. This seems ridiculous, but in Denis Johnson’s hands, it’s chilling and perfect.

Do you get annoying when a title is misleading? I threw the DVD across the room when I watched Head Hunters, based on the Jo Nesbø novel. No one gets their head cut off. It’s a gimmicky thriller where a rich tech bro ex-special ops guy tries to kill a jewel thief and tracks him–seriously–by putting nanotech in his hair. So, get it? He’s hunting him… by his head! Oh, wait. The jewel thief’s cover is that of an executive recruiter. A headhunter… get it? And this dingleberry has the gall to say he doesn’t read thrillers or crime novels because he’s “above genre.” I don’t normally call out writers like this, but he threw the first shot at the entire genre, and he sleeps on a bed of money, so he can shrug off my pitiful tirade. It won’t hurt his sales. Headhunters is the biggest movie hit in Norway, which makes me not want to visit.

Another fun read was “The Cage” by Tania James in the Winter 2017 issue of Tin House. It’s short and sweet, about overprotective, harried parents of today versus those who raised in the ’70s. It made me laugh.

In Shotgun Honey, Albert Tucher delivers–like he always does–with a Diana story called “The Caffeine Cure.” Al’s got a great voice and tells a great crime story, check out his novella The Place of Refuge for a longer read.

Denis Johnson continues to amaze me. Largesse is wonderful. You can read one of the best stories, “Strangler Bob,” set in a county jail, here.

“King of the Animals” by Josh Russell in the latest One Story magazine is the most chilling tale depicting the Juggernaut of authoritarianism behind our latest leader and the nightmares it has brought to life.

“The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington” by Phenderson Djèlí Clark

at Fireside Fiction is one of the best stories I’ve read in a long while, mixing history and fantasy to ask the revolutionary general how he could have treated people so badly while fighting for freedom.

Story Challenge for February, part two

I had a few book reviews due–Walter Mosley’s Down the River Unto the Sea, and Eva Dolan’s incredible This is How it Ends–so I’ve cut back on the short stories a bit. Now I’m back at it, and here are some favorites:

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“Fractal” by Joyce Carol Oates at Lit Hub. She writes many kinds of stories, but this genre tale about a child prodigy with abilities we can’t understand is a real winner.

“Nobody’s Fool” by R.D. Sullivan at Shotgun Honey has a nice twist. Sullivan is a new voice on the crime fiction scene and one to watch.

“Blacktop” by Mrs. Fringe is an entertaining read about a cocksure never-been character some of us know well. There’s always one of them at the gym or on the court.

“Mendelsohn,” in Tin House, by Seth Fried, is a bit long but an entertainingly bizarre suburbia story. I like this in part because I wrote a terrible suburban story about an anthropologist at war with a raccoon that keeps eating his trash. It was never published, the characters were caricatures, but it was good practice, and I liked reading what an experienced writer could do with the idea.

I have a book due at the library- I blew through the excellent House. Tree. Person. by Catriona McPherson, a gripping but entertaining and light psychological thriller, and now I need to finish the forgotten classic Black No More by George Schuyler in a few days, so I won’t be reading more short stories yet!

If you like short stories, my collection Life During Wartime was just released by Down & Out Books, and contains “The Big Snip” which was chosen for The Best Crime & Mystery Stories 2016, as well as a Jay Desmarteaux yarn, three Denny the Dent tales, and “The Cronus Club,” which has never before appeared in print. Signed copies are available from Watchung Booksellers and The Mysterious Bookshop.

 

 

Two Saps at The Mysterious Bookshop…

This Wednesday, join me and Nick Kolakowski for a reading and signing at The Mysterious Bookshop, starting at 6:30PM. There will be beer!

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Nick will have his novella Slaughterhouse Blues and I’ve got Life During Wartime, a collection of 21 stories, from Denny the Dent, stories chosen for the Year’s Best Mystery and Crime, and the Jay Desmarteaux yarn that begins where Bad Boy Boogie leaves off.

Can’t make it? Order a signed copy from the store, to pick up or have shipped to you! They can even have books inscribed for you.

Pre-order Slaughterhouse Blues  signed

Pre-order Life During Wartime signed

 

Stories for February, week one

Here are the stories I’ve read in the first week of February. What good shorts have you read lately? Tell us in the comments.

We Were Holy Once

La Belle de Nuit, La Belle du Jour

The Man and Women Like Him

Things You Should Know About Cassandra Dee

The Fires of Western Heaven

…all by Amber Sparks, in her excellent collection The Unfinished World.

She can write. Some stories have a touch of Edward Gorey, others are more vicious, but they are all delightful. I especially liked “We Were Holy Once”, about an infamous frontier family of hucksters and murderers, from the point of view of the simple brother. “Cassandra Dee” is chilling like a good fairy tale. The title story is more of a novella and feels diluted among the others. Alone it would probably be stronger. I did enjoy it.

“The Crazies” by Maud Streep, One Story.

I bet she gets this a lot, but I was glad it wasn’t Meryl when I saw it. One Story publishes some great stuff, but they also publish stories and excerpts of novels by people who don’t really need exposure, like Tom Hanks and Elizabeth Gilbert. They’re not exclusive, so it’s not to boost subscriptions. I don’t know why they do it, when they only publish 12 stories a year. But anyway, this is one of the good ones, a quick read that draws you in. They’ve had a solid run for the last few months, with this, “Guerrilla Marketing,” and “Pups.” For a $21 subscription, you get a lot of good reading.

Back to McSweeney’s 50:

“Orange Julius” by Kristen Iskandrian is a great story about parenting and over parenting.

“The Secret Room” by Benjamin Percy is a dark and true little short that could kick off a great novel. I hope it does someday.

“Please Fund Me” by Rebecca Curtis is a hilarious poke at entitlement. Looking forward to reading her story collection, Twenty Grand and Other Tales of Love and Money.

McSweeney’s 50 peters out with a translation of a Honore de Balzac story called “The Unfinished Masterpiece” which was all right, and some end notes and footnotes that try to meta-story around it that I couldn’t be bothered with, but overall a good issue.

I love a good Appalachia story and “The Haint” by Chris McGinley at Shotgun Honey is a fine one.

In the new issue of Tin House (vol. 19, #2) “The Wolves” by Kseniya Melnik is a breathless fairy tale from Stalin’s purges. A really great read.

“The Noises from the Neighbors Upstairs: A Nightly Log” by Amber Sparks in SmokeLong Quarterly is hilarious. I heard her read it at Noir at the Bar in DC last October, and it’s even better in print.

Another Tin House story is the excellent “Moon and Star” by Ginger Gaffney, about a horse trainer trying to rope two rescue mares at a prison ranch where the inmates learn to work with animals. It’s as tense as it can get and still beautiful. Don’t tell me “literary” stories are about nothing.

Short Story Challenge, January 2018

As I said in an earlier post, I have tasked myself with reading more short stories this year, and I’m off with a bang. Here are the rest of the stories I’ve read in January. I highly recommend subscribing to One Story and Down & Out Magazine in particular. I am also greatly enjoying The Unfinished World, a story collection by Amber Sparks. A * (think Vonnegut) means I liked the story especially much. What are your favorite short stories you’ve read recently?

On the Top, by Mark Budman. Sasson Magazine*

One at a Time, by Lissa Marie Redmond. Down & Out Magazine*

The Lizzie Borden Jazz Babies, by Amber Sparks. The Unfinished World

The Cemetery for Lost Faces, by Amber Sparks. The Unfinished World*

Jordan Teller, by Sheila Heti. McSweeney’s 50*

The Logic of the Loadad Heart, by Amber Sparks. The Unfinished World

Thirteen Ways of Destroying a Painting, by Amber Sparks. The Unfinished World

Closure, by Nick Kolakowski. Down & Out Magazine*

Hero, by Jeff Parker. McSweeney’s 50*

Puppet Master Made the Puppets, by Vauhini Vara. McSweeney’s 50*

Tell the Bees, by Bill Crider. Down & Out Magazine*

Extinction Therapy, by Bracken MacLeod.*

The Wife’s Story, by Ursula K. LeGuin*

Lancelot in the Lost Places of the World, by Amber Sparks. The Unfinished World*

Guerrilla Marketing, by Sanjay Agnihotri. One Story*

Last Night at Skipper’s Lounge, by Timothy J. Lockhart. Down & Out Magazine

A State of Decline, by J.J. Hensley. Down & Out Magazine

Scattered and Smothered, by Hector Acosta. Shotgun Honey*

And the World was Crowded with Things That Meant Love, by Amber Sparks. The Unfinished World

Birds with Teeth, by Amber Sparks. The Unfinished World*

For These Humans Who Cannot Fly, by Amber Sparks. The Unfinished World*

Take Your Daughter to the Slaughter, by Amber Sparks. The Unfinished World

Today is the day… Life During Wartime and Other Stories

“Pluck likes to explore micro-cultures–Mohawk skywalkers, elite Wall Street brokers, veterinary workers, MMA fighters, cruel middle schoolers, and single mothers from Harlem, among many other types and anti-types. Amazingly, the dialogue, settings, and situations all ring true. (Either Pluck has done some serious research or he’s lived a life on the move!) ” —Out of the Gutter Online

To answer that wonderful review, I do a bit of both. I love research, and when I find something that interests me, I sack it away to explore late. Firecracker will tell you about road trips to visit strange places, like the former Nazi summer camp in Andover, New Jersey, where the American Bund marched. Or a museum to see a neolithic Venus fetish that looks like a woman holding a sword. Chatting with strangers to pick their brains, in bars, trains, elevators, and on the street. Driving over swamps in Louisiana to figure out where you could jump and have a chance of survival… I do research without leaving my desk, too, but you can’t depend on wacky wikis and Google all the time. You need to talk to people or observe them, and I’ve been lucky enough to know some very interesting characters, who I pay tribute to whenever I write.

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Take a ride on the neuter scooter in “The Big Snip,” selected as one of the best crime stories of 2016. Follow a mountain man who’s not what he seems into a snowbound frontier town where evil has sunk its claws. Dine at the most exclusive restaurant in New York, where “Eat the Rich” takes on a whole new meaning. Meet Denny the Dent, a hulking 350 pounds of muscle who wouldn’t harm a fly…but who’ll gladly crush a bully’s skull like a nut. And read the Jay Desmarteaux yarn that takes off where Bad Boy Boogie ends.

These are stories that Wayne D. Dundee calls “hard-hitting bombs” and Johnny Shaw says are full of “gut punches and belly laughs” and I think you’ll enjoy them. A gonzo investigation to find the assassin of the almighty in “Six Feet Under God,” two lovers who practice the most unsafe sex of all in “GunPlay,” which Hilary Davidson read at Noir at the Bar and brought down the house, to the opener, “Freedom Bird,” one of my most personal and favorite stories, which you can read here om Criminal Element.

Available directly from Down & Out Books (they give you the ebook for free with a paperback purchase), at your local bookstore through IndieBound, and from the usual retailers:

• Barnes & Noble — Trade Paperback | eBook

• iTunes — eBook

• Kobo — eBook

• Amazon — Trade Paperback | eBook

If you would like a personalized copy, I have a few left. You can email me at the Contact Form above.

Life During Wartime pre-order discounts and events

For years, readers wanted my stories in print. Well, now’s your chance!

Life During Wartime is a blackjack 21 of my best stories, including “The Big Snip” which appeared in The Best Crime & Mystery 2016, edited by Kristin Kathryn Rusch (and originally in Dark City Lights, edited by Lawrence Block). It has the Jay Desmarteaux story that begins where Bad Boy Boogie leaves off,. and three Denny the Dent tales, as well as new stories you haven’t seen before, like “The Cronus Club” and stories that were only in anthologies and hard to find out of print zines, like “Firecracker” and “Freedom Bird” and “The Story of O Street,” or crowd pleasers like “GunPlay” that were only heard at Noir at the Bar events. It snagged a great review from Out of the Gutter, and you can read the first story, “Freedom Bird,” here on Criminal Element.

Like the song the title story gets its name from, this book is a van loaded with weapons, locked up and ready to go.

And the best thing is that Barnes & Noble has decided to bless me with a 30% discount on the paperback! A mere $12 for a 364 page collection. Vhat a bargain! as they say in Havaii…. (you’ll have to read “Six Feet Under God” to get that joke).  Down & Out Books has a generous 60% discount on the ebooks if you prefer digital. That’s practically a Kindle matchbook price, if you want both.  The book drops January 29th, so who knows how long Barnes and/or Noble will keep this low price.

Here are the events I’ll be attending in 2018, so far. I WILL be at Bouchercon in St. Petersburg, hopefully with the second Jay Desmarteaux novel, RIFF RAFF, either in print or about to be released, so there will be ARCs or books, we shall see. I’m not rushing this one, it’s set in Louisiana and encompassing that big beautiful state and its many people is taking all I’ve got. But I’m loving it!

I hope to see you at one of these events. If you can’t make it, and would like a signed copy of Life During Wartime, reply to this email. They are $21 shipped, but I bundle them with Blade of Dishonor for $35 or all three books- Bad Boy Boogie, Blade, LDW, for $50 shipped.

Thursday, February 8th at 7:00 PM: The official launch of my story collection Life During Wartime at Watchung Booksellers in Montclair! Snacks and a brief reading and a Q&A.

Wednesday, February 21st at 6:30 PM: Life During Wartime  and Slaughterhouse Blues signing event with Nick Kolakowski at The Mysterious Bookshop. Join me and Nick for a night of noir. One week after Valentine’s Day, your heart will have recovered.

Thursday, March 8th at 6:00 PM: A Montclair Authors Meet & Greet at Sotheby’s, 32 Valley Rd, Montclair, NJ. Come join us for wine and cheese and rub suede elbow patches with local Montclair authors! I’ll be in the corner eating all the Gruyere.

Short Story Challenge! what have you read lately?

I didn’t mention any resolutions this year, but one I made to myself was to read more short stories. I subscribed to Down & Out Magazine, Tin House, The Strand, Crimespree, One Story, and McSweeney’s. I’ve always liked what McSweeney’s does with its designs, even if I don’t enjoy all of the stories.

Short stories are enjoyable, little capsule worlds where you can escape for a few minutes or an hour, and I love writing them as well as reading them. Here’s what I’ve read this year, so far:

* means I especially liked it.

Safety Rules, by Jill Block (Alive in Shape and Color, aka AISAC)*

Pierre, Lucien, and Me, by Lee Child (AISAC)

Charlie the Barber, by Joe R. Lansdale (AISAC)*

Bulletin Board Dragon, by Lilly Hunt (One Teen Story)

Lights Out, by Rebecca Williams (Spelk Fiction)

At Night, by Etgar Keret (McSweeney’s 50)

Details, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (McSweeney’s 50)*

Deliver Me, by Sherman Alexie (McSweeney’s 50)*

Nancy, All Too Nancy, by Jonathan Lethem (McSweeney’s 50)

Internal Life, by Corinna Vallianatos (McSweeney’s 50)

The Lace Shirt, by Carrie Brownstein (McSweeney’s 50)

He Only Died, by Raymond Chandler (The Strand)*

Are You Mine and No One Else’s?, Danny Lorberbaum (One Story)

Little Big Horn, by Thomas McGuane (M50)

The Sure Cure, by Diane Williams (M50)

Ten Commandments: How to Spot a Hoax, by Kevin Young (M50)

Random Balloons, by Bud Smith (Maudlin House)*

Pups, by Kate Folk (One Story)*

The Janitor in Space, by Amber Sparks (her collection, The Unfinished World)*

Next Monday I’ll post a new update.

What great short stories have you read recently?